Walker lags in latest national polls

Mirroring his presidential campaign’s decline in polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s numbers have dropped precipitously in the latest national polls of likely Republican voters. Walker was at 2 percent in the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. He was at 10 percent in the previous poll, which was conducted just prior to the initial televised Republican debate in early August.

Walker was one of two GOP candidates whose numbers dropped in the poll: former Florida Governor Jeb Bush went from 13 percent to 6 percent. Walker’s numbers suffered a similarly steep decline in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, where he had the biggest drop of any GOP candidate since the July survey, falling from 13 percent to 2 percent. Bush was also at 2 percent in the Post poll.

Walker’s decline in polls at both the national and state level have coincided with the phenomenon of two candidates with no prior political experience – business mogul Donald Trump and retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson – outperforming the mainstream GOP candidates.

The new Post/ABC poll found Trump is the favorite of 33 percent of registered Republicans. That’s an increase of nine percentage points since July. Carson was second at 20 percent, 14 points higher than in July. In the latest Times/CBS poll, Trump was at 27 percent, a modest increase of 3 points from the previous poll, while Dr. Carson surged from 23 percent from 6 percent.

Walker’s poll numbers have also deflated in the key states of Iowa and New Hampshire. In Iowa, where the governor has focused much his campaign’s energy in a bid to do well in next February’s Iowa Caucuses, Walker polled at just 3 percent in the latest Quinnipiac University poll. In New Hampshire, home of the first in the nation presidential primary scheduled for just one week after the Iowa Caucuses, Walker registered a meager 2 percent support in the latest Monmouth University poll.

Walker and the rest of the Republican field will participate in a second televised debate at 7:00 Wednesday evening at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. The debate, hosted by CNN, will feature the top 11 candidates, with an earlier forum for the candidates who did not qualify for the main debate.